When I’m watching my favorite shows I don’t want to talk to anyone—it’s me time—but I’ll make one exception: I’ll talk to a robot. Fire TV is getting some more voice recognition features with Alexa so you can more easily navigate the streaming box with just your voice.
- You’ll be able to control playback of Amazon Video, launch apps, search for movie showtimes, and more just by talking with Alexa. Using voice recognition is definitely convenient in this keyboardless context so you can avoid as much onscreen typing as possible. It’s just you and me, Alexa, watching re-runs of Tiny House Hunters ‘til dawn. [Business Wire]
- Netflix is coming to broadcast television. Netflix has partnered with Univision to broadcast the first season of Narcos in anticipation of the upcoming online premiere of the show’s second season. Essentially like syndicating re-runs. It’s a clever deal for everyone involved: Univision gets a show for a “low fee” and Netflix gets new attention for the series. [Business Insider]
- T-Mobile’s Binge On program just added more services to stream without impacting your data plan. The emphasis today is video, with videos from Spotify, Google Play Music, NBC, Tidal, and more streaming to your heart’s content. [TechCrunch]
- Google is inching closer to killing Flash. Later this year Flash will be disabled by default in Chrome, and if Flash is required by the site it’ll ask if you really want to let Flash run. Some major sites will be whitelisted for a while as a temporary reprieve, though, until HTML 5 replaces everything. [Venture Beat]
- Remember earlier this year when a mall CEO accidentally revealed that Amazon was planning on opening more physical stores and then backtracked on his comments? Guess what! Amazon is going to open more stores, says Bezos himself. [Business Insider]
- What if instead of replying to a message with a cute cartoon emoji, you could reply with your own real face. Facebook just filed a patent that suggests they want to display your actual face when you type 🙂 in a message, using facial recognition to scour your tagged photos for the appropriate reaction. 🙁 [PSFK via The Next Web]
Source: LifeHacker
